sECret idEN­ti­ties Cover

In honor of the new Asian Amer­i­can super­hero comic sECret idEN­tites, I have decided to reveal my 5 quick and easy steps to becom­ing a real life Asian-American Super­hero. As a child, I always wanted to be a super­hero. And to a cer­tain extent even right now with Bat­man Returns being such a hit, I get the crav­ing to put on some tights, build a secret Lair, and yell at some­one “We’re pro­fes­sion­ally through!” Any­way, I remem­ber after watch­ing the orig­i­nal Super­man imme­di­ately climb­ing up on my roof with a trash bag, hold­ing it like a cape, and jump­ing off. Spi­der­man on PBS inspired me to climb up the tallest jun­gle gym and jump to a lower rung like a spi­der. Indi­ana Jones had me grab­bing a rope and jump­ing from tree to tree as I swung it like a whip.

…I did a lot of jump­ing off things as a kid. I guess what I’m say­ing is that maybe if I had an Asian super­hero to idol­ize, I wouldn’t have gone to the emer­gency room as much. So for that rea­son alone, let me tell you a lit­tle bit about sECret idENtites.

This ground­break­ing graphic anthol­ogy brings together lead­ing Asian Amer­i­can cre­ators in the comics industry—including Gene Yang (National Book Award final­ist for Amer­i­can Born Chi­nese), Bernard Chang (Won­der Woman), Greg Pak (The Hulk), and Chris­tine Nor­rie (Black Canary Wed­ding Spe­cial )—to craft orig­i­nal graph­i­cal short sto­ries set in a com­pelling “shadow his­tory” of our coun­try: from the build­ing of the rail­roads to the Japan­ese Amer­i­can intern­ment, the Viet­nam air­lift, the mur­der of Vin­cent Chin, and the incar­cer­a­tion of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.Appeal­ing to both comics fans and Asian Amer­i­cans seek­ing to claim their place in Amer­i­can cul­ture, Secret Iden­ti­ties makes bril­liant use of the con­ven­tions of the super­hero comic book to expose the real face of the Asian Amer­i­can experience.

Enter­tain­ing and enlight­en­ing, Secret Iden­ti­ties offers whiz-bang action, sear­ing satire, and thought­ful com­men­tary from a com­mu­nity too often over­looked by the cul­tural main­stream, while show­cas­ing a vivid cross-section of the tal­ents whose imag­i­na­tion and cre­ativ­ity is dri­ving the con­tem­po­rary comics renaissance.

The first story 9066 “cen­ters around a Japan­ese Amer­i­can super­hero who is sent into an intern­ment camp after Pres­i­dent Franklin D. Roo­sevelt signs Exec­u­tive Order 9066 on Feb­ru­ary 19, 1942 in response to the attack on Pearl Har­bor”. You can find out more about them on their web­site or you can drop them a com­ment at their MySpace page. They even have a pre­view on their web­site (PDF, 5.5 mb). And just like any other grass­roots move­ment, they’ve made a YouTube video to get the word out to the masses. Check it out and pass it on. The book will be avail­able in April 2009 — or you can pre-order your copy today on Amazon.com.

Now what you’ve all been wait­ing for, my 5 easy steps to becom­ing and Asian Amer­i­can Super­hero:

1. Pick a power

No, being good at math is not a super power. I’m talk­ing about get­ting a hold of some rare earth metal or meteor and get­ting some radi­a­tion poi­son­ing. If I’ve learned any­thing from comics, get­ting radi­a­tion poi­son­ing leads to super­pow­ers. If for some rea­son, beyond my imag­i­na­tion, you can’t get your hands on radioac­tive mate­ri­als, start think­ing out­side of the box. Maybe some­thing closer to home that you have access to. …a tal­ent or char­ac­ter trait that you can exploit …one that you can hone to a razor sharp edge. For instance, one year dur­ing col­lege I was called Gas Man for my power to clear a room with my gas. I have also gone by Cap­tain Save-a-Ho and Cap­tain Cock-Block. Maybe you have heard of my good deeds.

2. Make a costume

When pick­ing a cos­tume, it is impor­tant to remem­ber that this will become your iden­tity. It will become the most rec­og­niz­able aspect of your pub­lic pro­file. Your col­ors, they logo on your chest, they all come together to cre­ate your pub­lic image. Tights with your under­wear on the out­side is not only clas­sic super­hero but prac­ti­cal as well. With all the ass kick­ing and hair-raising expe­ri­ences going on, you can be secure in the fact that you will never shit your under­wear. But remem­ber, you not only rep­re­sent super­heroes but Asians as well. So try to stay away from stereo­types such as a bowl hair cut. And if that bulge in your tights …is not so much a bulge but a lump, think of wear­ing a cod­piece. Bat­man does it. Let’s try to not rein­force neg­a­tive stereotypes.

Not X-Men but Y-Men

3. Get a Secret Identity

Luck­ily for us, a secret iden­tity is not some­thing we have to worry about. As we all know, all of us Asians look alike.

4. Get a secret Lair

This is an impor­tant but often over­looked step to becom­ing a super­hero. Your lair is where you train. It’s where you do your research and more impor­tantly do your much needed heal­ing after long bat­tles with your enemy who we define in step 5. You want it to be safe and for the most part impos­si­ble to find. For that rea­son, I have cho­sen a pho shop. Have you seen how many Pho restau­rants there are in the San Gabriel Val­ley? Good luck find­ing that! And even if you do, open the secret door you have to sit at the right table with pull out the clean chop­stick. Do you know how hard it is to find a clean chop­stick in a Viet­namese restau­rant? Hey, I’ve heard of more imprac­ti­cal things in comic books. “Look at me! I’m Super­man. Now with my glasses on, look at me I’m Clark Kent. What a great disguise!”

5. Find an Arch Neme­sis to fight, an injus­tice to right,  or a cause to champion

Finally, maybe the most impor­tant step to becom­ing a super­hero, find­ing a great enemy. Your arch neme­sis needs to be imme­di­ately revolt­ing, an enemy that we can all despise and hate. Now this doesn’t have to be a real per­son. It’s actu­ally eas­ier to find weekly adven­tures if it’s not. It could be cor­rup­tion, face­less cor­po­rate bul­lies, or some other sort of hor­ren­dous but relat­able injus­tice. For instance, some of the per­sonal adver­saries that I have fought in the past have been: bad dri­ving, eyes that don’t open all the way, and poor engr­ish. My cur­rent arch neme­sis is tak­ing a shot of alco­hol with­out turn­ing red.

So I say to you out there, good luck future Asian-American super­heros of the future. The only caveat that is give is with great power comes great respon­si­b­lity. Please use this infor­ma­tion only for good and not for evil.